Schoolchildren celebrate textbook festival

Nearly 44 million schoolchildren celebrated on Monday the textbook festival receiving books free of cost for their new classes on the first day of New Year, reports BSS.
Education ministry officials said 354,290,162 textbooks were distributed among 43,706,895 students of pre-primary, primary, ebtedayee, secondary, dhakhil and technical students for the 2018 academic year as the schools and other equivalent educational institutions staged ceremonies on their compounds to hand them over the newly-printed books.
"This (festival) is the outcome of our (government's) sincere commitment to reach the books on the first day of the year," Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said while joining one of the major ceremonies held at capital's Azimpur Govt Girls High School and College.
Distribution of free textbooks started since 2010 at both primary and secondary level, he said adding 2,608,591,290 copies of textbooks were distributed from 2010 to 2018.
Secretary of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Division Md Sohorab Hossain, Secretary of Madrasah and Technical Education Board Md Alamgir and senior officials of the Education Ministry were present on the occasion.
Jubilant students thronged their respective schools and madrasa compounds to collect new books. Nahid said, "Free textbook is the gift of the New Year of the present government.....Distribution of free textbook is the milestone initiative of the government to check drop-out rate of students."
A festive mood was seen among the delightful students when they joined book distribution ceremony at their respective educational institutions.
Nahid said Bangladesh has set a rare example in the world through distribution of free textbooks among a large number of students on the first day of January.
He said in the past seven years Bangladesh also made significant progress in education fulfilling different global targets including achieving gender parity in education before scheduled time.
Officials said 187,385,921 copies of textbooks were distributed among 13,035,574 students at the secondary level students.
A total of 103,624,405 copies of textbooks were distributed among 21,721,129 students at the primary level, they added.
A total of 149,276 textbooks were printed for 58,255 students of ethnic groups at the pre-primary school, they added.
A BSS report from Chittagong adds: A total of 23.50 million textbooks were distributed among over 2.4 million students of primary, secondary and vocational students of the city and district today.
District Primary Education Officer Nasrin Sultana said, "Over 23.50 million textbooks were distributed among over 2.4 million pre-primary, primary, secondary and vocational students for the 2018 academic year." Acting City Mayor Neser Uddin Ahmed formally inaugurated the book distribution programme for the city schools at Mostafa Hakim School.